EMPLOYMENT AND SOCIAL POLICY COUNCIL : MINISTERS WELCOME REFLECTION ON SOCIAL DIMENSION OF EMU.

• Position: Brief article

The employment and social affairs ministers support strengthening of the social dimension of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), and in particular the idea of a social and employment scoreboard to provide input for the European semester'. This was the message that came out of their 28 February working breakfast with European Council President Herman Van Rompuy. "The speakers expressed different views on how deep the measures should go with respect to national sovereignty versus Europe-wide competence, but there was real consensus that we need to put the social dimension more clearly on the table and that EPSCO as a Council needs to play a more central role in the evolution of the semester process," said Ireland's Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Richard Bruton.

The heads of state and government agreed at the...